Floor Statements

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to S. Res. 357.

I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, the motion to reconsider be laid on the table, en bloc, and any statements be printed in the Record.

I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed en bloc to the consideration of the following Calendar items: No. 444 and No. 445.

I ask unanimous consent that the amendment to the resolution, where applicable, be agreed to; that the resolutions, as amended, if amended, be agreed to en bloc; the amendment to the preamble, where applicable, be agreed to; the preambles, as amended, if amended, be agreed to, en bloc; that the title amendment to S. Res. 346 be agreed to and the motions to reconsider be laid on the table, en bloc, the consideration of these items appear separately in the Record, and any statements be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I understand that there is a bill at the desk due for its first reading.

Mr. President, I ask for a second reading, and in order to place the bill on the calendar under the provisions of rule XIV, I object to my own request.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it stand adjourned until 3 p.m., Monday; that on Monday, following the prayer and pledge, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed expired, the time for the two leaders reserved for their use later in the day; that there then be a period of morning business for 90 minutes, with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each; with Senator Boxer in control of the first 60 minutes, and the remaining 30 minutes under the control of the Republicans; that following morning business, the Senate resume consideration of Calendar No. 158, S. 294, Amtrak authorization.

Mr. President, as a reminder to Members, the cloture motion has been filed on Amtrak. Germane first-degree amendments need to be filed by 3:30 p.m. on Monday.

Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent the Senate stand adjourned under the previous order.

Mr. President, we are going to have an hour of morning business. The time is controlled by the two leaders. The Republicans control the first half, the Democrats the second half.

Following morning business, the Senate will resume consideration of Amtrak. Last night, an agreement was entered into regarding consideration of the pending Sununu amendment relating to rail subsidies. There will be 2 hours of debate on that amendment. Votes are expected sometime around 11:30 or 11:40 today.

I would say that the Republican leader and I just had a conversation. We have to check with a couple of Senators on each side. What we might try to do to get out of the procedural problem we have now--because we do have one with this--is we may try to set up a couple of competing votes. We will try to do that. We know the issue is pretty well formed. We know what one side wants, and we know what the other side wants. So it is probably appropriate that we set something up so that we can vote on both of them. What has been suggested is that we have a 60-vote margin on both of them, which, of course, is certainly done on occasion around here.

So as soon as I finish here, I am going to go make a couple of calls to my Senators and see if we can have Senator McConnell--if he has any problems on his side, he will do the same, and maybe we can enter into some kind of an agreement and vote at 11:30, maybe two votes. We are on top of that. I think it would be a way to move into this bill so that we are actually debating the railroad Amtrak issues rather than this Internet issue, which is important, and it has to be decided within the next few days one way or the other because otherwise it expires. So that is where we are.

There should be amendments throughout the day. I know I have had one Senator who asked me if there will be votes tonight, and I think it is very likely there will be votes tonight. So I think anyone considering going to Boston to watch the World Series might not be able to do that.

Mr. President, H.R. 3564 is at the desk and due for a second reading.

I now object to any further proceedings.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that any time Senator McConnell and I use not be charged against the time for the two sides on morning business.

Mr. President, 5 years ago today, the Senate lost one of its hardest working, most respected Members: Senator Paul Wellstone. I can still remember very clearly the phone call I received from Pete Rouse, who was the chief of staff for Senator Daschle, and he said: I have some terrible news. There was an airplane crash, and we think Paul Wellstone was on that plane.

Well, hope springs eternal, and I was hoping that was wrong, but it wasn't. He was in a plane crash. Sheila, who was his partner--she was with him everyplace--was killed in that plane crash. One of his three children, Marcia, was also killed, and three campaign aides.

Typical for Paul Wellstone, he had made a commitment to be someplace, and he wanted to go. The weather was bad. The pilot said everything would be OK. The pilot wasn't telling him the way it really was. I am not going to get into how the accident happened or why it happened, but certainly it was nothing that Paul Wellstone did wrong. Paul Wellstone wanted to fulfill a commitment. He shouldn't have been up in that airplane. The pilot shouldn't have taken that airplane into the areas that he did, but he did.

In his life, Paul Wellstone earned the titles of doctor, professor, Senator, but he liked to be called Paul. That is what I am going to call him today.

Paul loved to talk. He stood back there, and he was a good speaker. I can remember the first time I heard him speak. There were some new Senators who had been elected, and we had an event in the Rotunda for the new Senators. I had never heard him speak before. He was dynamic, what he said. He was talking about why he had gotten involved in politics.

Paul came here in 1991. He was a crusader. That is what he was. He was a crusader. He was always out charging ahead on some issue he believed in. Mostly, the issues were those where people needed help. The poor, the left behind, veterans, the environment, and those with mental illness were always a special concern to him. He took pride in championing the fight for people needing a helping hand.

He knew a lot about growing up with adversity. He had a brother he loved who suffered from mental illness, and that is why he joined with Senator Domenici to work on mental health parity. His parents worked hard. They didn't have much. But Paul told me how his father would sit at the table in the evening and talk to him about what was important in life.

He was a remarkable man. He was very small in stature physically, but in that big facility across Constitution Avenue, the police headquarters, where hundreds and hundreds of police officers come and go out of that facility every day over the years, Paul Wellstone still holds the record of being able to do the most chin-ups and the most pushups in a given period of time. He was a powerful little man physically.

Most of what he accomplished, as indicated with the chin-ups and pushups, was with sheer grit and determination. He earned a wrestling scholarship from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He married his high school sweetheart. He earned an Atlantic Coast Wrestling Championship and managed to graduate in just 3 years. After college, he earned a Ph.D. in political science and became a college professor at the age of 24 at a very academically known school, Carleton College in Minnesota.

But even then, in his years before the Senate, he was a true believer and an impassioned fighter for justice, and that is an understatement. One may not have agreed with what his definition of justice was, but his definition was worth fighting for, and he fought hard.

While teaching at Carleton College, he led the charge to divest the university from apartheid in South Africa. He helped local farmers when banks came to foreclose on their farms. That is Paul Wellstone. He fostered a new generation of active, civic-minded students by teaching specialized courses with names like ``Social Movements'' and ``Grassroots Organizing.'' These were courses he invented. There were no textbooks for them.

There were some who said that for an untenured professor, teaching activism and leading campus protests wasn't the smartest career move a person could make. In fact, when Paul came up for tenure, he was initially denied. In effect, he was in the process of being fired. It took a groundswell of student support. Thousands and thousands of students, most of whom didn't even go to that university, rallied on his behalf. He kept his job. He got tenure. At 28, he was the youngest tenured professor in the history of Carleton College. It was done because the students wanted him more than did the administration, because he was a great teacher.

So when he came to the Senate, it was no surprise he brought a fearless progressive spirit with him. I recall observers comparing him to Jimmy Smith's character in ``Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.'' He was idealistic, he was determined, and he was very effective.

He came here refusing to be phased by the politics of division, refusing to be phased by business as usual. I don't think the phrase ``status quo'' was in his vocabulary. Wherever he saw injustice, intolerance, or simply ineffectiveness, one would understand that Paul Wellstone would be around. When he found injustice in the treatment of the mentally ill, he stepped forward to ensure parity for sufferers of what were known as unspoken illnesses when it comes to insurance caps. When he found injustice in the treatment of our veterans, he stepped forward to help them, especially those who were homeless. When he found injustice in the way our Earth was treated, he stepped forward to protect the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge from drilling, among other things. He never hesitated, paused, or pondered. He stepped forward. He was really a leader.

Now, in his leading, that didn't mean everybody agreed with him because much of the time--in fact, most of the time--he was in the minority. He didn't care if he had two people supporting him or one or if he was alone. He never hesitated--I repeat, he never paused or pondered.

Many wondered how this fire-breathing progressive was able to accomplish so much in his time. The answer is that he believed in bipartisanship and he actively embraced it. It was never a surprise to see Paul team up with one or more of the Senate's most conservative Members to get something done for the people of the State of Minnesota or our country. During his time here in Washington, it never changed him. It really didn't. He left this Earth with the same idealisms and passion he always had.

He once said:

Never separate the life you live from the words you speak.

He lived by that rule.

I recall that when he first arrived in the Senate, he kept wondering--he would leave his office all messed up, and he would come back and it was clean. He asked: Who does that? He was told: People come in late at night and clean your office--the janitors. So Paul Wellstone, after learning that, stayed that night. They came after midnight. He waited for them so he could tell them how much he appreciated them cleaning his office. That is the kind of guy he was. True to form, he did that, as he did many unusual things, in the minds of many.

There is a man who still works here; his name is Gary. I don't know Gary's last name. He is a big man. He helps us here. We have all seen him. Gary said people refer to him as ``Tiny.'' Paul told me: I would appreciate it if you wouldn't refer to him as ``Tiny.'' His name is Gary. I have never referred to him as anything other than Gary. He thought that was a pejorative statement. Tiny, as many people refer to him, is a huge man, and Paul somehow thought that was not the right thing to do.

He was really my friend. I counseled with him. I went to the doctor with him. Right before he was killed, he had

a terribly bad back. Oh, it was bad. He refused to go to the doctor. He refused to go to the hospital, which is where he should have gone. We took him to the doctor down here. The sweat, because of the pain, was pouring off his face.

He was a very tough man. I will always remember that phone call I got from Pete Rouse. I will always remember Paul Wellstone. The loss of his presence has been felt and missed every day. He added a new dimension to the Senate. You don't always have to win to be a winner. So I say to his sons, David and Mark, and the entire Wellstone family, Paul Wellstone will always be in my heart and in the hearts of anyone who knew him.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 429, H.R. 3678.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the amendment at the desk be agreed to, the bill, as amended, be read a third time and passed, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, and that any statements relating to this matter be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I also want to express my appreciation for the diligent work of my friend from Delaware. Senator Carper has worked on this issue for years. We have had a number of others who have been involved in this issue. Of course, the chairman of the committee, Senator Inouye, has been very helpful during the day. We have had assistance from Senator Rockefeller and Senator Wyden, but I and the Senate owe a debt of gratitude for the work done by my friend from Delaware, working with our friend from New Hampshire.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Sununu amendment No. 3452 be withdrawn and the cloture motion be withdrawn.

Mr. President, there will be no votes tomorrow. We have announced long since that we would have no votes Monday. We have a lot we are going to do Tuesday, the first of which is to complete the work on the important Amtrak legislation. There has been great progress made on that today.

I think we have had an interesting week. We may not be happy with the results--I say that because some are happy, some are not--but it has been a productive week. It has been a week in which, in spite of the divisiveness of the issues before us, they have been handled in a very collegial way. There have been strong feelings expressed on both sides, but it has been done, I think, in a way that brings credit to the Senate.

Mr. President, we are going to immediately return to executive session to continue the consideration of Judge Southwick to be nominated to one of our circuit courts. The debate time until 11 o'clock is equally divided and controlled. The 20 minutes prior to the 11 a.m. vote on the motion to invoke cloture on the nomination will be for the two leaders who will be recognized to speak, with the majority leader controlling the final 10 minutes. That order is already in effect. The consent agreement says if cloture is invoked the Senate would go to confirmation following that cloture vote. Following disposition of the nomination, there will be 20 minutes of debate, equally divided, prior to the vote on the motion to invoke cloture.

Mr. President, there are two bills at the desk due for a second reading.

I object to any further proceedings with respect to these bills en bloc.